I had my birthday Tuesday July 19th on the ship. People on the ship gave me a lot of happy birthdays! I also received presents. Piper gave me a Lego, Alexander gave me a Lego and cards Mommy and daddy gave us some gum and money. I gave Piper a nail file because she wanted a Swiss army knife because it had a nail file on it. Daddy made pictures of us from different countries. He hung them up all over the ship! Some were just with me and some were just with Piper and some were with both of us. I thought the pictures were awesome! Almost everybody on the ship knew it was my birthday!

Happy Bratislava Birthday, Sydney and Piper!

Birthday decorations for the twins!

Birthday decorations for the twins!

Birthday celebration on the AmaViola

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Also… since the crew knew it was our birthday they put a swan, a bunny and a birthday cake in our room. They were made of towels. On the cakes were little mint candies. We loved those! There was also a happy birthday sign which was cool too!

Mommy, daddy and the crew members had a special dinner planned for us. We got to choose that or movie night in the lounge. It was hard to decide. We chose a special dinner. At the dinner during the dessert time music started playing happy birthday and crew members sang happy birthday to us! We got 2 cakes! We didn’t finish them. We went up stairs and gave it to the other kids. We also got special birthday pins!

Yay! Birthday presents!

Birthday decorations for the twins!

Birthday decorations for the twins!

Birthday celebration on the AmaViola

Birthday celebration on the AmaViola

Birthday celebration on the AmaViola

Visiting Devin castle in Slovakia

On the morning of our birthday we woke up in a new country – Slovakia! That morning we ate breakfast, walked around the city for a little while and saw cool statues, and then got on a bus and went to a castle called Devin castle. It was pretty big. We got to try archery. It was fun. Alexander and I were the only people who hit the target. I must be pretty good to have hit the target. The string hit my arm so that hurt. Piper went first. She was really anxious to go. Mommy did it really hard.

We saw a demonstration of fencing. It was funny. They had a fake cannon they used and it hurt your ears because it was really loud. They cut open a water bottle to show how sharp the weapons were. Piper also got to cut open a water bottle. They wore funny costumes. We liked it.

We had a tour of the castle. There was a well. We dumped some water in it. It made a weird echo noise. It took seven seconds to get the water that we dumped down to the bottom. It was really far down. We dumped a whole bucket in there. There was a okay view. We could see Slovakia and a lot of trees.

We did coin, candle making and calligraphy. My favorite was coin making. You hit a hammer really hard on a stick of hard metal with a design on it which was set on top of a coin. Daddy did the best at that. Candle making was dipping this string into hot water and wax. I wrote a letter S in calligraphy. I was bad.

Walking Bratislava

Walking Bratislava

Medieval weaponry at Devin Castle, Austria

Medieval weaponry at Devin Castle, Austria

Medieval weaponry at Devin Castle, Austria

Medieval weaponry at Devin Castle, Austria

Beatiful Devin Castle, Slovakia

Beatiful Devin Castle, Slovakia

Medieval crafting at Devin Castle

Medieval crafting at Devin Castle

The end of our Cruise: Budapest and the light show

Our ship drove into Budapest. We went down the Danube river and we saw a bunch of buildings and bridges. It was at night. I liked it but the laser show in Hong Kong was way better. Mommy and daddy betted on if there was going to be a light show with lasers. They betted five dollars. Daddy won and mommy lost.

My favorite building was Parliament and my favorite bridge was the Chain Bridge. I was watching it from the pool with Piper and some other friends. It was fun to be there and watch the lights. The pool was lit up which was cool too.

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Evening cruise through Budapest. Spectacular!

Ending

The next day the cruise was over. I was kind of sad for that. The ship was nice, I could stay there another week or two. We got off that afternoon. We will have another blog post on Budapest because we were there for four days. I think it was exciting to explore Budapest.